Gunrunner Page 17

  ‘I’ll sign the authorization on Monday, Harry,’ said the DAC, ‘And I’ll send it over to your office first thing.’

  That satisfied me. I knew that the DAC wouldn’t renege on his undertaking if it all went pear shaped, unlike some senior officers I’d known.

  I returned to the incident room and arranged for the issue of three Glock automatic pistols from our armoury.

  It was past eight o’clock by the time we found ourselves in Argus Road, Bethnal Green. To my surprise, it proved to be a street of gentrified houses, but we still didn’t know which of them was occupied by Charlie Pollard.

  That problem, however, was solved by the ever-resourceful Dave Poole. Seeing a dreadlocked black man lolloping down to the road towards us, Dave alighted from the car.

  ‘Hey, bro, which is Charlie Pollard’s flop?’

  ‘Number fifteen, bro,’ said the man, without breaking step, and waved vaguely at a house somewhere behind him.

  The three of us, Kate, Dave and I, walked down the road, and approached the front door of Charlie Pollard’s house. As I rang the bell, Dave drew his Glock automatic and held it down by his side, out of sight.

  The door was answered by an attractive young woman, attired in jeans and a sweater. I reckoned she was in her mid-twenties.

  ‘Hello,’ said the girl. ‘Can I help you?’

  For a brief moment, I wondered if we’d been misled into believing that Charlie Pollard, reputed armourer to the underworld, lived here.

  ‘I’m looking for Charlie Pollard, miss,’ I said.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ I said.

  The young woman leaned back while still holding on to the door. ‘Charlie, there are some police officers here to talk to you,’ she shouted. ‘Have you been speeding again?’ she added. Turning to face us, she smiled. ‘Just coming.’

  Dave moved alongside me, and I sensed that his grip on his Glock was tightening. I unbuttoned my jacket to give myself faster access to my pistol, should I need it.

  ‘I’m Charlie Pollard. What’s the problem?’ asked the thirty-something blonde woman who appeared at the door.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘You’re Charlie Pollard?’ Confronted by this shapely, attractive woman, I found it difficult to disguise my astonishment. Over the years, I’d met many women connected with the criminal world, but the only ones who looked like her were either West End villains’ birds or high-class prostitutes. Instinctively, I felt that this woman didn’t fit into either of those categories.

  ‘Yes, I am. Is it something to do with my car? What exactly is it that you want?’ An element of impatience crept into the woman’s voice; my surprise at being wrong-footed had made me pause for too long.

  ‘May we come in?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’ There was no hesitation, and Charlie Pollard held the door wide open.

  Dave turned away and discreetly re-holstered his Glock.

  Although the room into which the woman conducted us was comfortably and tastefully furnished, it was apparent that it had not cost a great deal of money.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard,’ I said, and introduced Kate and Dave.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ said Charlie. Her gaze lingered on Kate Ebdon longer than on Dave Poole who was the usual object of female admiration. ‘You’ve met my friend Erica Foster, of course.’

  Erica smiled in our direction, turned off the television, and squatted on a beanbag next to it.

  ‘How well d’you know the Spanish Fly?’ I asked.

  ‘The what?’ Charlie giggled and shot a sideways glance at Erica. ‘Are you talking about the aphrodisiac?’ she asked, and laughed openly.

  ‘It’s a nightclub in the West End,’ I said, immediately sensing that this interview was going to be an uphill struggle.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘Does the name Miguel Rodriguez, otherwise known as Michael Roberts, mean anything to you?’

  ‘No. Should it?’

  ‘Or Patrick Hogan, Billy Sharpe, Gary Dixon or Bernard Bligh?’

  Charlie Pollard laughed again. ‘What is this, twenty questions? Do I get to phone a friend?’

  ‘Early this morning, Miss Pollard . . . it is Miss Pollard, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is, if that has anything to do with our conversation. But I’d rather you called me Charlie.’

  ‘Were you christened Charlie, or is your name actually Charlotte?’

  ‘I wasn’t christened, but my given name is Charlie, and that’s what’s on my passport, and all my other documents.’

  ‘Early this morning,’ I said, ‘we arrested Roberts and Hogan—’

  ‘Look, Chief Inspector . . .’ began Charlie patiently and paused. ‘It is chief inspector, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said.

  ‘None of those names means a thing to me and, to say the least, I’m puzzled as to why you’re telling me all this.’

  ‘They were arrested for being involved in the illegal importation of firearms. Eventually, one of them stated, under caution, that it was you he worked for, and you who received those weapons. This has subsequently been confirmed by a number of other people to whom we have spoken.’

  Charlie Pollard stared at me with an expression combining perplexity with amusement, but nothing that conveyed guilt. ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I can assure you, Miss Pollard, that it’s no laughing matter.’

  ‘I asked you to call me Charlie. Well, if you think I’ve got anything to do with guns, have a look round. Anywhere you like.’ She circled a hand in the air, as if to encompass the entire house. ‘But I’ll say it again: I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, and I find the entire allegation preposterous. In fact, I really think it’s time I talked to a solicitor.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the name Kerry Hammond?’ I asked, determined to finish what I’d come here to do.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ snapped Charlie. It was obvious that she was beginning to get annoyed with my persistent questioning.

  ‘What do you do for a living, Charlie?’ asked Kate.

  ‘I’m a school teacher,’ said Charlie with a smile, her gaze resting on Kate for longer than seemed necessary.

  ‘And before you ask,’ chimed in Erica Foster, ‘I’m an accountant.’

  To put it mildly, it was beginning to look as though I’d been the recipient of false information. The thing that intrigued me was why Charlie Pollard’s name should have been fed to me as an arms dealer by more than one person. I was starting to think that I’d been made the butt of a villain’s elaborate joke. I just couldn’t wait to interview Messrs Roberts, Hogan and Sharpe again.

  ‘I’m sorry that we bothered you, Charlie,’ I said. ‘We’ve clearly been misinformed.’

  ‘Not at all, Chief Inspector. You’ve quite brightened up our Saturday evening. It’ll be something to tell our friends over dinner.’

  We piled into our car and drove off. I was not in the best of moods. Perhaps we’d got the wrong Charlie Pollard, and that there was actually a man of the same name in the area. But Billy Sharpe was adamant that Argus Road was the address he had heard Bernard Bligh mention on the telephone.

  Erica Foster twitched a gap in the curtains, and peered out.

  ‘They’ve gone, Charlie.’

  ‘D’you think they suspected anything, lover?’

  ‘Nah!’ said Erica derisively. ‘They’re just a bunch of plods. Anyway, who cares about women having it off together? It’s not illegal.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Charlie, ‘but I’d rather my boss didn’t find out.’

  ‘D’you mean the headmistress?’ asked Erica, and they both laughed.

  I had now been working since about five o’clock this morning. But still the day wasn’t over. When we got back to Curtis Green, there was a message waiting to say that DI Driscoll had arrested Bernard Bligh and he was in cus
tody at Charing Cross police station.

  ‘Just the man I want to talk to,’ I said. ‘Dave, you’re with me.’

  ‘I’ve just been dragged from my home like a common criminal, and I want to know why I’ve been arrested.’ Bligh, who was almost incandescent with rage, stood up as Dave and I entered the interview room.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Bligh.’ Dave and I sat down on the opposite side of the table. ‘I’ve just been to number fifteen Argus Road, Bethnal Green, where I interviewed a suspect named Pollard.’ At this stage, I had no intention of revealing that Pollard was a woman, and a damned attractive one at that.

  ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ asked Bligh, with a sneer.

  ‘But you knew that that’s where Pollard lives.’

  ‘I know nothing of the sort,’ retorted Bligh.

  ‘So far,’ I continued, ‘we’ve arrested Michael Roberts, who runs the Spanish Fly nightclub under the name of Miguel Rodriguez, and Patrick Hogan, Billy Sharpe and Gary Dixon.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘And you have been arrested for being concerned with them in smuggling firearms into the country.’

  ‘That’s bloody nonsense. I don’t know a damned thing about any firearms. If that’s what Dixon and Sharpe were up to, I don’t know anything about it. And I’ve never heard of the other two you mentioned.’ Bligh paused. ‘Except that you mentioned Rodriguez’ name to me some time ago, but I told you then that I didn’t know him.’

  ‘When Billy Sharpe was arrested, he was very quick to tell me that he’d overheard you on the telephone one day, and that during the course of your conversation you’d mentioned Pollard’s address.’

  ‘He’s a lying little bastard.’

  ‘That may be so, but on this occasion I believed him.’

  ‘Pollard had certainly heard of you,’ put in Dave, gilding the lily quite outrageously.

  ‘Look, all right, so I knew about Pollard, but I didn’t know she had anything to do with smuggling.’

  It was, I supposed, a natural reaction to my allegation that he’d been conspiring with those we had in custody.

  ‘You said “she”,’ Dave continued. ‘You knew that Pollard was a woman, then.’

  ‘How did you come to know of her?’ I asked, taking back the questioning from Dave.

  ‘She was one of Kerry’s lesbian mates.’

  ‘Are you saying that Kerry Hammond was bisexual?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Bloody disgusting, I call it. That woman was sex mad. She even tried it on with me. She’d go after anything in trousers or, better still, out of them. It was a way of life to her.’

  ‘Just how much d’you know about Charlie Pollard, Mr Bligh?’

  ‘Nothing more than I’ve told you.’

  ‘Who were you telephoning when Sharpe overheard you?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Her husband. I thought it was time he knew what she was getting up to.’

  That sounded like sheer spite and may have had something to do with the ownership of Kerry Trucking rather than gunrunning. Bligh had made no secret of the fact that he felt he should’ve taken over the company when Dick Lucas was killed. And he was even more annoyed that control of the haulage company had passed to Nick Hammond on Kerry’s death.

  ‘What was his reaction?’

  ‘He said he knew about it, and he didn’t care. To be perfectly honest, I think Nick Hammond’s only interest was in getting a slice of the company. And now he’s bloody well got it.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Hammond had something to do with his wife’s murder?’ I asked.

  Bligh shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Chief Inspector, but I did hear that his estate agent’s business was going downhill. I think I told you before that Kerry had put some money into it.’

  But Bligh didn’t know that Hammond’s estate agency was merely a front for his more arcane occupation. Not that it mattered, one way or the other.

  ‘How did you know that Pollard was Kerry’s lover?’ I asked.

  ‘I guessed. Charlie Pollard rang the office one day and asked for Kerry when she wasn’t there. She asked me to pass on a message.’

  ‘What was the message?’

  ‘She said that she and Kerry were spending a naughty week together at an all-girls’ nudist colony in Switzerland, and that Kerry was not to forget her passport. Sounded a bit lame to me – Kerry’s been abroad often enough not to forget her passport – and I wondered if this woman wanted me to know about Kerry’s sexual habits.’

  ‘How did you know Charlie Pollard’s address?’

  ‘I found it in Kerry’s address book. She’d left it in her office.’

  So, Kerry had more than one address book. The one we’d taken from her house in Barnes on the night of her murder did not contain an entry for Charlie Pollard.

  ‘I suppose that address book isn’t still in the office, is it?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Kerry seemed in quite a panic about it when she turned up the next day. She said she thought she’d lost it.’

  That was a blow, but not a surprise, given that it might’ve contained some other names that were connected to the firearms business. I made a mental note to visit Nick Hammond again, to see if he knew.

  ‘I shall admit you to police bail, Mr Bligh,’ I said, ‘to return to this police station in one month, unless you hear otherwise.’

  ‘What for? I had nothing to do with this business.’ Bligh stood up. ‘You’ll be hearing from my solicitors about this,’ he said angrily.

  ‘I dare say,’ I said, but it was a threat I’d heard many times before. And usually nothing ever came of it.

  It was now ten o’clock and it had been a long day.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, Dave, I want Gary Dixon brought in here. I think he knows more than he’s told us so far.’

  ‘It’s Sunday tomorrow, guv,’ said Dave.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose he’s a churchgoer.’

  ‘Just as well I’m not, either,’ muttered Dave.

  At ten o’clock on Sunday morning, Dave and I joined Gary Dixon in the interview room at Charing Cross police station. He was clearly unhappy at being there, and that made three of us.

  ‘D’you still maintain that you’ve no idea who assaulted you, Gary?’ I began. ‘Was it Roberts and Hogan?’

  ‘I’ve told you already, I don’t bloody well know.’

  ‘Would it loosen your tongue if I told you that they’re both in custody, and won’t be getting bail?’ asked Dave.

  ‘What you nicked them for?’

  ‘Unlawful possession of firearms, and sundry other offences,’ continued Dave. ‘We can easily add GBH with intent to the ever-lengthening list of charges.’

  ‘I never saw their faces.’ Dixon was obviously not risking it. But as a former prison inmate, he knew that he could probably be got at more easily in prison than out of it. And he seemed to be in little doubt that prison is where he’d end up.

  ‘Did Kerry Hammond ever mention a woman called Charlie Pollard, Gary?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. Kerry was having it off with her. She liked doing it with a bird as well as with a bloke.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘She told me and said that it turned men on. I asked if I could watch, but she drew the line at that.’

  ‘Did she ever mention anything about Pollard in connection with the business?’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘Kerry Trucking, of course.’ I wasn’t sure whether Dixon was being devious or obtuse.

  ‘Nah, I don’t think so. Oh, hang on a mo, though. Yeah, she did say something about Charlie Pollard having one of them self-storage places she sometimes used.’

  ‘That Kerry sometimes used?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I said, weren’t it?’

  ‘Where was this lock-up, Gary?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Ah, now you’re asking,’ said Dixon, running a hand round his unshaven chi
n.

  ‘That is indeed what I’m asking,’ said Dave patiently.

  ‘Yeah, got it. It’s in Sastow Road, Bethnal Green.’

  ‘And she told you that?’ Dave was having some difficulty in believing that Kerry would’ve made such a careless admission.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you ever go there?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘off you go, Gary. And you’re still on bail.’

  ‘Bloody charming, that is,’ muttered Dixon as he limped from the interview room.

  At last, it looked as though we were getting somewhere with the firearms enquiry, but we were still not moving any closer to discovering Kerry Hammond’s killer.

  I knew that attempting to obtain a search warrant from a magistrate on a Sunday morning was a non-starter. Instead, I’d singled out the local detective superintendent at his home and told him that we suspected the existence of explosives at the lock-up in Sastow Road.

  ‘It is a matter of some urgency, guv’nor,’ I’d said, adding the requisite legal proviso to my application.

  The superintendent had laughed. ‘I’m retiring in a couple of weeks’ time, Harry, and I couldn’t care less about the legal niceties. So you don’t have to give me a load of old moody.’ And with that pithy comment, he cheerfully signed a written order to search.

  It was midday by the time I arrived at Sastow Road, Bethnal Green. I had Kate Ebdon, Dave and Nicola Chance with me, and half a uniformed serial of the local Territorial Support Group.

  There were one or two dodgy-looking individuals working in their respective stores, and our arrival seemed quite to upset their Sunday. I regretted that I didn’t have the time to take a look at what they were up to because I’m sure it would’ve cleared up a few burglaries, blaggings and other assorted villainy.

  We found the guy in charge, who showed us to the store that Charlie Pollard had hired, and one of the TSG lads took off the padlock with bolt cutters.

  There was not much in the store, but what there was proved sufficient. Four boxes contained a total of twenty-four handguns in pristine condition, all of which were wrapped in oilskin.

  I left the TSG sergeant and his team in charge of our find, and told him to arrange for an armed escort to take the weapons to Lambeth.